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Models Of Scientific Inquiry
Models of scientific inquiry have two functions: first, to provide a descriptive account of ''how'' scientific inquiry is carried out in practice, and second, to provide an explanatory account of ''why'' scientific inquiry succeeds as well as it appears to do in arriving at genuine knowledge. The philosopher Wesley C. Salmon described scientific inquiry: The search for scientific knowledge ends far back into antiquity. At some point in the past, at least by the time of Aristotle, philosophers recognized that a fundamental distinction should be drawn between two kinds of scientific knowledge—roughly, knowledge ''that'' and knowledge ''why''. It is one thing to know ''that'' each planet periodically reverses the direction of its motion with respect to the background of fixed stars; it is quite a different matter to know ''why''. Knowledge of the former type is descriptive; knowledge of the latter type is explanatory. It is explanatory knowledge that provides scientific unders ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wesley C
Wesley may refer to: People and fictional characters * Wesley (name), a given name and a surname Places United States * Wesley, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Wesley, Georgia, an unincorporated community * Wesley Township, Will County, Illinois * Wesley, Iowa, a city in Kossuth County * Wesley Township, Kossuth County, Iowa * Wesley, Maine, a town * Wesley Township, Washington County, Ohio * Wesley, Oklahoma, an unincorporated community * Wesley, Indiana, an unincorporated town * Wesley, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Elsewhere * Wesley, a hamlet in the township of Stone Mills, Ontario, Canada * Wesley, Dominica, a village * Wesley, New Zealand, a suburb of Auckland * Wesley, Eastern Cape, South Africa, a town Schools * Wesley College (other) * Wesley Institute, Sydney, Australia * Wesley Seminary, Marion, Indiana * Wesley Biblical Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi * Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, DC * Wesley University of Science and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Explanatory Power
Explanatory power is the ability of a hypothesis or theory to explain the subject matter effectively to which it pertains. Its opposite is ''explanatory impotence''. In the past, various criteria or measures for explanatory power have been proposed. In particular, one hypothesis, theory, or explanation can be said to have more explanatory power than another about the same subject matter * If more facts or observations are accounted for; * If it changes more "surprising facts" into "a matter of course" (following Peirce); * If more details of causal relations are provided, leading to a high accuracy and precision of the description; * If it offers greater predictive power (if it offers more details about what should be expected to be seen and not seen); * If it depends less on authorities and more on observations; * If it makes fewer assumptions; * If it is more falsifiable (more testable by observation or experiment, according to Popper). * If it can be used to compress en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copernican Revolution
The term "Copernican Revolution" was coined by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in his 1781 work ''Critique of Pure Reason''. It was the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic model of the heavens, which described the cosmos as having Earth stationary at the center of the universe, to the heliocentric model with the Sun at the center of the Solar System. This revolution consisted of two phases; the first being extremely mathematical in nature and beginning with the 1543 publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’s ''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'', and the second phase starting in 1610 with the publication of a pamphlet by Galileo. Contributions to the "revolution" continued until finally ending with Isaac Newton's 1687 work . Heliocentrism Before Copernicus The "Copernican Revolution" is named for Nicolaus Copernicus, whose '' Commentariolus'', written before 1514, was the first explicit presentation of the heliocentric model in Renaissance scholarship. The idea of helioce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heliocentric
Heliocentrism (also known as the heliocentric model) is a Superseded theories in science#Astronomy and cosmology, superseded astronomical model in which the Earth and Solar System, planets orbit around the Sun at the center of the universe. Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to Geocentric model, geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center. The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun had been proposed as early as the 3rd century BC by Aristarchus of Samos, who had been influenced by a concept presented by Philolaus of Croton (c. 470 – 385 BC). In the 5th century BC the Greece, Greek Philosophy, philosophers Philolaus and Hicetas had the thought on different occasions that the Earth was spherical and revolving around a "mystical" Pythagorean astronomical system#Central Fire, central fire, and that this fire regulated the universe. In medieval Europe, however, Aristarchus' heliocentrism attracted little attention—possibly because of the loss of scientific works ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paradigm Shift
A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. It is a concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced and brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn. Even though Kuhn restricted the use of the term to the natural sciences, the concept of a paradigm shift has also been used in numerous non-scientific contexts to describe a profound change in a fundamental model or perception of events. Kuhn presented his notion of a paradigm shift in his influential book ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' (1962). Kuhn contrasts paradigm shifts, which characterize a Scientific Revolution, to the activity of normal science, which he describes as scientific work done within a prevailing framework or paradigm. Paradigm shifts arise when the dominant paradigm under which normal science operates is rendered incompatible with new phenomena, facilitating the adoption of a ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American History and philosophy of science, historian and philosopher of science whose 1962 book ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term ''paradigm shift'', which has since become an English-language idiom. Kuhn made several claims concerning the progress of science, scientific knowledge: that scientific fields undergo periodic "paradigm shifts" rather than solely progressing in a linear and continuous way, and that these paradigm shifts open up new approaches to understanding what scientists would never have considered valid before; and that the notion of scientific truth, at any given moment, cannot be established solely by Objectivity (philosophy), objective criteria but is defined by a consensus of a scientific community. Competing paradigms are frequently Commensurability (philosophy of science), incommensurable; that is, there is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence formula , which arises from special relativity, has been called "the world's most famous equation". He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for . Born in the German Empire, Einstein moved to Switzerland in 1895, forsaking his German citizenship (as a subject of the Kingdom of Württemberg) the following year. In 1897, at the age of seventeen, he enrolled in the mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Swiss ETH Zurich, federal polytechnic school in Zurich, graduating in 1900. He acquired Swiss citizenship a year later, which he kept for the rest of his life, and afterwards secured a permanent position at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. In 1905, he submitted a successful PhD dissertation to the University of Zurich. In 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Occam's Razor
In philosophy, Occam's razor (also spelled Ockham's razor or Ocham's razor; ) is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony (). Attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian, it is frequently cited as , which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity", although Occam never used these exact words. Popularly, the principle is sometimes paraphrased as "of two competing theories, the simpler explanation of an entity is to be preferred." This philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction and both hypotheses have equal explanatory power, one should prefer the hypothesis that requires the fewest assumptions, and that this is not meant to be a way of choosing between hypotheses that make different predictions. Similarl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desiderata
"Desiderata"(Latin: 'things desired') is a 1927 prose poem by the American writer Max Ehrmann. The text was widely distributed in poster form in the 1960s and 1970s. History Max Ehrmann of Terre Haute, Indiana, started writing the work in 1921, but he did not assign it a title. He registered for his U.S. copyright in 1927 using the poem's first phrase as its title. The April 5, 1933, issue of ''Michigan Tradesman'' magazine published the full, original text on its cover, crediting Ehrmann as its author. In 1933, he distributed the poem in the form of a Christmas card, now officially titled "Desiderata." Psychiatrist Merrill Moore distributed more than 1,000 unattributed copies to his patients and soldiers during World War II. After Ehrmann died in 1945, his widow published the work in 1948 in ''The Poems of Max Ehrmann''. The 1948 version was in the form of one long prose paragraph, so earlier and later versions were presumably also in that form.Contrary to Bell v. Combined Regi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Method
The scientific method is an Empirical evidence, empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has been referred to while doing science since at least the 17th century. Historically, it was developed through the centuries from the ancient and medieval world. The scientific method involves careful observation coupled with rigorous skepticism, because Philosophy of science#Observation inseparable from theory, cognitive assumptions can distort the interpretation of the Perception#Process and terminology, observation. Scientific inquiry includes creating a testable hypothesis through inductive reasoning, testing it through experiments and statistical analysis, and adjusting or discarding the hypothesis based on the results. Although procedures vary across Branches of science, fields, the underlying #Process, process is often similar. In more detail: the scientific method involves making conjectures (hypothetical explanations), predicting the logical consequences of hypothesis, then ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heuristics
A heuristic or heuristic technique (''problem solving'', '' mental shortcut'', ''rule of thumb'') is any approach to problem solving that employs a pragmatic method that is not fully optimized, perfected, or rationalized, but is nevertheless "good enough" as an approximation or attribute substitution. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Context Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier (2011) state that sub-sets of ''strategy'' include heuristics, regression analysis, and Bayesian inference. Heuristics are strategies based on rules to generate optimal decisions, like the anchoring effect and utility maximization problem. These strategies depend on using readily accessible, though loosely applicable, information to control problem solving in human beings, machines and abstrac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking (8January 194214March 2018) was an English theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between 1979 and 2009, he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, widely viewed as one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world. Hawking was born in Oxford into a family of physicians. In October 1959, at the age of 17, he began his university education at University College, Oxford, where he received a First Class Honours, first-class Honours degree, BA degree in physics. In October 1962, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where, in March 1966, he obtained his PhD in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology. In 1963, at age 21, Hawking was diagnosed with an early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease that gradually, over decades, pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
